Fed up with Jamie Oliver? Tired of E.L. James? High street book retailers have
come up with an alternative list of books that they think will be
best-sellers this Christmas.

Around 200 independent bookshop owners voted on the ten books they think will appeal to people looking for something a little different this year.

The list includes titles such as 101 Uses for a Dead Kindle by Adrian Searle and Wenceslas: A Christmas Poem by Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate.

The number one book is Horologicon: A Day’s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language by Mark Forsyth. The book examines “extraordinary” words from the English language arranged by the hour of the day.

In second place is Artemis Cooper’s biography of the war hero and travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor.

Patrick Neale, president of The Booksellers Association, said that the list contains “bizarre”, “obscure” and “undiscovered” titles.

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“These out of the ordinary, off-beat titles were nominated during the Association’s annual conference, which brought together around 200 booksellers. These were carefully selected with the imaginative book buyer in mind, who may be looking for something a little different to bestseller books,” said Mr Neale.